


Cockles Is So Fake!

by Violetlyvanilla



Category: Supernatural, Supernatural RPF
Genre: Cockles breakup theory theory, Cockles main pairing, Crack Fic, Fake Orgasm, Fake cockles breakup, Happy Ending, Jensen POV, M/M, Meta, Mutual Pining, Not ‘canon’ compliant, Parody, Poet Misha, Sailing, alternative universe, character bleed through, cockles bracelet, dom brow, everything is ok nothing hurts, fake kissing, gif references, meet cute, mentions of Destiel, season 4, think of this as cockles AU, what happens in rome
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-16
Updated: 2019-02-16
Packaged: 2019-10-29 15:36:01
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,129
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17810714
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Violetlyvanilla/pseuds/Violetlyvanilla
Summary: In a desperate bid to revive interest in the show Supernatural, Jensen enters into a fake relationship with Misha. Pretending to be a secret off screen couple seemed easy enough at first but then wayward feelings come to the fore.





	Cockles Is So Fake!

2008  
~~~SUPERNATURAL SEASON 4 PRE-PRODUCTION MEETING ~~~

"So this is Misha Collins who will be playing Castiel." 

Jensen looked up from the script and there is a man looking back at him. He had brown hair and very blue eyes, a shy smile and he was very very pretty. Jensen wasn't exactly a stranger to pretty, he knew his own face was okay, he had been a model for a long time. This guy though was another type of pretty. All angles and flirty lashes. He was wearing a jumper, a little misshapen and more loud than tasteful, his hands stuck in his pockets. His voice when he spoke was melodic. 

"Hello, you must be Jensen, I'm an admirer of your work." 

"The soap opera or the topless calendar?" Jared interjected with a sly smile. 

Misha looked kind of innocent, angelic if Jensen was being honest with himself. Like butter wouldn't melt in his soft pink mouth. Jensen cleared his throat. Misha looked over to Jared, he looked like a deer caught in the headlights at his comment. But then his back arched a little straighter and he seemed to come to a decision. 

"Where do I buy the calendar?" He asked Jared. Jared guffawed. 

"New guy's gonna work out," he declared, patting Misha on the back and shaking him by the hand. "So I hear you've got some ideas to pitch for this project huh?" 

"I was just going to listen for a bit and then see if I have anything to contribute," Misha sat down at the table demurely while the writers and directors talked. 

"So the show's not doing too well," Jensen said to Misha when the tea and coffee arrived. "We're on our last season officially but Eric is doing his darnest to sell us to a new network. Anything you can bring to the table would be listened to. Your character is a whole new mythological creature, an angel, that's gonna make or break the show." 

Misha smiled giving Jensen a nod. "I'll treat the role with the utmost care." 

"Yeah, well, I think the first few scenes are gonna be us two trading lines. If you need a hand on running through those just come by my trailer. Uh, I, I don't mean it like that." 

Misha was giving Jensen a rather long rather intense look. Jensen drank some water, wishing it had more ice in it. 

Jared, who had been watching them like a cat watching two mice navigate a maze, popped up out of his seat banging his hands on the table. "I got it!" 

Everyone stopped their snacking and looked at Jared who was talking excitedly and pacing. 

"A fake relationship! They use it for films, so why not a TV show? Jensen and Misha can pretend to be a couple in real life. Not obviously, just enough to tease the fans and that'll heat up the interest in the show. Maybe it'll get people interested in the Dean and Castiel dynamic. You know like shipping, but real life, Mishackle? Jenollins?" 

Misha wrinkled his nose. "Cockles." 

"Like the shellfish?" Jensen laughed, this was a stupid idea, no one was going to buy it. "Really?" 

Misha shrugged. "I'll start a twitter account and maybe post some things to hint at it." 

Jensen looked at Jared's hopeful face and Misha's carefully composed one. Some of the writers were nodding eagerly, others already starting to debate the idea. Jensen looked Misha in the eyes. 

"Alright, for the show." 

"For the show," Misha echoed carefully. 

* * * 

"Hey Jensen, you know what I think might be good for the show?" Jared said mid squat. "If Castiel touched Dean on the shoulders. Like platonic but meaningful."

Misha was on the rowing machine in a corner of the gym. He was wearing a large grey AC/DC t-shirt, his back muscles rippling as he pulled on the handle, his whole body curving like a bent whip, then snapping back into place. Jensen jumped when Jared jabbed him in the ribs with his elbow. 

"What?" 

"Oh yeah, and staring, you guys should totally eyefuck," Jared said. 

"Eye what?!" 

Misha was turning around, burying his glistening face in a gym towel. Jensen was starting to suspect he was laughing. He glared at Misha, hard. Misha gave him a long impassive look back. 

"Just like that!" Jared cheered. 

* * *

"He's kind of like a puppy," Jensen said apologetically. "Gets real excited when he gets an idea into his head." 

Misha nodded, the chair Jared had put him in for the reading was right next to Jensen's. They could only be sitting closer if Jensen was in Misha's lap. Jensen blushed at the thought which came rushing into his head unbidden. 

"If any of this is making you uncomfortable..." Jensen began to say. 

"Are you uncomfortable?" Misha asked, raising an eyebrow. Jensen looked at him, frozen. "Uh, hey Mish can you do that look for Cas?" 

Misha's eyebrow dropped. He looked to the floor then he looked up again. "Do you mean like this?" His voice gravelly as he cocked an eyebrow at Jensen. He was in character and Jensen felt Dean rearing up in his own head like a wilderbeast hearing the hunter's call. 

"Yeah, like that Cas," Jensen said, or maybe Dean said. 

Misha's face crumpled into a helpful smile. "Sure Jen, if you want." 

"That's the dom brow!" Jared popped up between them, as if a genie conjured up by the mere presence of character chemistry. "How do you keep coming up with these thing? Oh yeah, look at his mouth too why don't you?" 

Misha looked a little guilty, Jensen was about to jump to his defence. 

"Keep staring at his mouth like Dean's thinking about kissing him," Jared hammered Jensen on his back. "Fuck you guys are awesome at this!" 

Jensen lowered his eyes just as Misha glanced back at him. 

"So good!" Jared fist pumped the air, bouncing away. "Show's saved!" 

* * * 

Misha was the picture of professionalism on-set, he always hit his mark and he never forgot his lines. He was polite and friendly to work with, never too familiar. When Jensen and Jared played around to keep the energy flowing on the production, he seldom joined in. Preferring to type away on his phone or go to the gym. Jensen's pretty sure the guy was writing poetry during the breaks. One day he saw Misha bust out a few moves with a hammer when a piece of the set required some urgent repairs. He was a hands-on artistic kind of guy, rather private. Jensen found himself wondering what Misha's sexuality was. Just so as not to offend him when they were playing up to the cockles. The sneaky suspicion that maybe Misha, just like Castiel, liked what he liked and was indifferent to labels made Jensen's stomach do that flip flop thing. They had chemistry, anyone with eyeballs could figure that one out, but did Misha know Jensen was also disinclined to label himself? Would it be inappropriate to ask? 

"Excuse me," Misha said, taking a wide side step past Jensen to get to the salad bar. 

"How's the uh kale?"

"Green." Misha looked at Jensen, staring him in the eyes. 

"Quit doing the Cas eyes," Jensen said in a fluster. "You getting character bleed through or something?"

"Or something," Misha grinned, shoving a forkful of greens into his mouth. 

He went wide of Jensen again, well it seems Castiel's personal space problem hadn't leaked through to Misha. Jensen watched as Misha sat down at the far table, taking his phone out to read as he ate his lunch. He could almost say that Misha was avoiding him. 

Jensen felt awkward standing there, till Jared bumped him out of the queue. 

"Trouble in paradise?" 

"Not a real couple," Jensen shoots back. 

"Yeah, I know that," Jared says casually. "Do you?" 

Jensen steps up to the buffet and fills his plate. He sat eating it with Jared and totally does not check out Misha as he writes in his little notebook. Totally doesn't wonder about what poetry Misha's writing. 

Maybe it was a grocery list. 

* * * 

Jensen's hand shook as he drew the two plump circles. The fan was looking at him with wide shocked eyes. He made the phallus extra thick and long and proffered the photo back to her with a flourish. 

"Do me a favour, show that to Misha," he gave his best Dean smirk. 

Jensen counted down the minutes, waiting to hear Misha's hearty laugh that always stirred the butterflies in his stomach. It didn't come. Jensen took a deep breath, Misha was playing hardball. He stood up out of his chair, walking from his autograph table to Misha's. 

Misha was signing a photograph and Jensen told himself over and over 'for the show, for the show' as he leaned down and put his arms around Misha. Misha went all stiff, and not like that, just surprised for a second. Then he melded his back into Jensen's torso, and leaned on him a little like they were used to hugging. Fuck the guy was a good actor. Jensen found his hands settled over Misha's shoulders, his thumbs rubbing small circles. He told himself that was because he too was an excellent actor. 

"You drew this for me? The big black ... penis?" Misha asked. 

"Uh huh." Jensen said still rubbing small tiny circles. 

Jared was watching someone take a video of the whole thing. He gave Jensen and Misha a thumbsup. They laughed and it wasn't weird. At all. 

* * * 

Misha wasn't eating his steak very quickly. It was marbled, five star grade, wagyu with a smokey mushroom sauce. Jensen's favourite restaurant, he ordered the best meal on the menu, with the off the menu truffle butter thrown in. What was Misha's problem? They were celebrating the ratings and Misha looked positively morose as he picked at his food with his fork. Jensen probably shouldn't speak. There had been a lot of wine and beers flowing. He had been drinking and so had Jared and Misha was half way through his single glass of fancy French white. 

"You okay?" Jensen finally decided to say because caring about your coworker was a nice thing to do. Not at all overbearing. 

Misha looked up at Jensen and was that distress in his eyes. Jensen's sure he pretty much never wanted to see that look on Misha's face again. Misha belonged in fields of flowers, the spring breeze at his back, his brows unburdened except by daisy chains and the water nymphs strumming their guitars as Misha wrote and painted and tweeted and did Misha things. Jensen really was drunk. He was feeling that gushy gooey feeling that had been dwelling in his chest for weeks going on months. It was warm and drippy and he usually kept a tight lid on it but Misha's glistening eyes was too much to bear. 

"Maybe I should just quit," Misha said out of the blue. His words sparkling in the air like those special effects bulbs when Castiel walks through the barn door. They dazzle and daze Jensen, they frighten the crap out of him. 

"You just signed up to be a series regular," Jensen blurted out. "I love working with you!" 

Misha looked at him, a little cross eyed from the wine, a lot Castiel. "I like working with you too." 

"So what's the problem?" Was that Jensen talking or Dean? Jensen didn't know. He couldn't shut up. "I thought you were happy with the money, the role, what do you want Mish, I'll get them to give it to you. The show needs you." 

I need you, but that could be a line for the show, Jensen vaguely thought. Filing the thought away for future reference. 

"How long can we keep this up, the charade," Misha said pointing at Jensen then himself. "Pretending to be a couple. When I thought it was just a few episode or maybe half a season it seemed doable. Now it's, well, it feels weird. And don't worry I'm the king of weird but the lying. To the audience, the fans we see all the time at the conventions, to new cast members who think we're together. They just assume it and half the time we don't tell them it's fake anymore. It feels disingenuous!" 

Maybe to Misha it did but for Jensen the feelings, he could admit after half a dozen beers and a bottle of good wine, were maybe less so. 

"Would it make you feel better if it were real?" Jensen said, the words flying out of his mouth like wishful piglets with wings taking shape and forming sound before he could shut his trap. 

Misha looks at him, scandalised as if Jensen had just suggested a threesome with a stranger or worse yet Jared. Like Jensen was propositioning him or something. Like Jensen was opening a door to a whole new chaotic world and Misha was tempted. But that was probably the flying piggies again. 

"Would it make you feel better?" Misha asked and it was like he was talking about something else all together. "Not having to lie, to others, to yourself?" 

Jensen shook his head. "I'm not that deep." 

"I don't know how deep you are, I haven't gone that far down, yet." 

Misha's eyeballs were liquid crystal, how do they glow like that in the candle light? Jensen checked around them, no reflective screens, no special effects. They weren't on set. The thought brings with it harsh reality and sobriety of sorts. 

"I got an early call tomorrow morning," Misha says very gently as Jensen tried and failed to regroup his face. "I better get going Jen. Thanks for the steak and tell Jared I had to bail when he's out of the bathroom okay?" 

Misha doesn't offer to pay for the meal, Jensen had already covered it. His feet were steady as he walks away, pulling on his coat and beanie at the door. Talking to the front desk to ask for a cab. Jensen watched him the whole time and some more after he was out of the door. 

"Practising the pining?" Jared said flippantly as he sat down. 

Jensen pulled over Misha's plate and hoed into the left over steak. It was oozing and soft, savoury and sweet. It did nothing to fill Jensen up. Misha's wineglass tasted like peppermint lipbalm on the rim. And Jensen was the biggest creep. He ought to remember who he was, he was the second billing star and anything untoward toward Misha would be an imposition. He had to be a better man. Jensen told himself. Again. 

* * * 

"There's this charity I started," Misha was mumbling and Jensen was straining to hear him over the sound of the exercise bike blades. "It's called You Are Not Alone. There are these bracelets ..." 

Jensen stopped peddling. The wheels were still spin spinning. Misha was looking dead ahead, his legs pumping, his voice a little puffed. 

"I'll wear it Mish, of course, don't even need to ask." 

"Might be good for the shellfish thing," Misha added, showing Jensen the leather strap and little metal token wound around his wrist. "Like a friendship bracelet." 

Jensen nodded. 

"I mean I know you're not much into jewellery given that you got wardrobe to retire that necklace," Misha went on to say. "But this one won't get in your way when you work or exercise. Not that I want you to wear it on set. Just if you don't mind taking some con shots with it or wear it around for a couple of days..." 

Misha was rambling, his mouth looked dry in the air conditioned gym. Jensen was lost looking at it. He started peddling again, hard. Wearing out his body with the effort in order to restrain his thoughts. 

"Mish, shuddup, I said I'll wear it already." 

There was a little plastic bag on the makeup table the next morning, yellow post-it with his name on it. A little heart done in blue marker. That Jensen totally didn't put into his journal in the bottom of his suitcase. The bracelet he wore on his wrist every day onward, like some sort of talisman. Like it meant more than Misha intended. 

They sold like hotcakes. 

* * * 

"Cockles is so fake!" 

"Yeah they're just using it to make money!" 

Jensen half listened to the conversation in the auto-queue. They were ripping into Misha too. 

"I don't watch any episodes with the village idiot in it." 

Jensen stood up, throwing down his pen. "I'm taking a toilet break." 

They looked at him horrified. 

"Might be a poop." 

* * * 

Misha found him in the private bathroom. Sitting on the closed toilet lid, fuming and appalled at himself. 

"So I hear you stormed out of autos," he said, leaning against the cubicle door. 

Jensen groaned, putting his face in his hands. 

"Well it doesn't smell like you're going to the toilet, unless your shit really don't stink," Misha said, softly tapping on the door till Jensen grunted and flicked the lock open. 

"I don't want to go back out there," Jensen said. "I used the word 'poop' shit! fuck!!" 

Misha squatted down, meeting Jensen's eyes. "Hey, you know Jared's all over it. Charmed them into joining his queue, they're doing photo ops now. It was a long flight, we're in a whole new city, no one's going to blame you for being a little bit grumpy." 

Jensen rubbed at his temple. Misha had a million places to be but here he was, in the toilet with Jensen. 

"They care about the show, same way as we do, they don't have to buy into what we're selling." 

"Yeah, they're real astute," Jensen said bitterly. "Cause between you and me whole lotta nothing." 

"That's right," Misha was the sweet voice of reason, his hand on Jensen's warm and comforting. "We're just really good friends." 

Jensen was good with friends. He had lots of them. Jared was a friend and Jared was good looking and Jared worked with Jensen and Jensen sure didn't want to fuck him. He didn't want to fuck Misha either, right? 

"We don't fuck, Dean and Cas don't fuck," Jensen said like a mantra. Misha nodded encouragingly. 

"Never gonna fuck with you Jen, don't worry," Misha said, his mouth softly curved up in a bleak smile. 

And that does it, Jensen bursts into tears, like some dam overflowing. 

"You're laugh crying right?" Misha asks, concerned. 

"I promise never to fuck with you too Mish." 

And Jensen wasn't lying for once. To himself or to Misha. If he slept with Misha, if that ever happened, he'd be making love. He was so fucked. 

"This is fucked up," Jensen splashed his face with cold water from the basin. 

Misha ripped paper towels from the roll and carefully dabbed the tissues over Jensen's face. He still looked blotchy and pink and swollen and sad but he felt a little better. Misha held Jensen's cheek in his hand and his body was very close. There wasn't much room anyway. His lips were still perpetually dry and Jensen just had to lean a little to wet it for him once and for all time. But Jensen was a professional and Jensen had self control. So Jensen ended up walking out of the bathroom, Misha on his heels, someone taking photos again of them departing the single cubicle together. The cockles myth lives on. Jensen smiled for the cameras awry. 

They'd probably never come to Rome again. Jensen thought. He should enjoy the experience while it lasts. 

* * * 

He was insane, he was bad, he was taking three steps in quick succession and covering Misha's mouth like they rehearsed and pressing his own mouth to the back of his hand. Or was it Misha's hand on his mouth? Was it Castiel's hand on Dean's mouth, pushing him against the wall. Was that the sound of wolf whistles from the crowd or the clatter of the clapperboard as the director yells cut? 

The whole thing about not kissing Misha, fake kissing Misha, was that still time distorting, space disorientating effect it had on Jensen. 

He lets go. Huffing into the microphone, the sound of his excitement blowing gustily over the speakers. Amplified. All the lights and cameras and no where to hide. Except Misha is doing his darnest to carry on with the show, joking and flirting and making those eyes at Jensen that had their own name on social media. Heart eyes. Like they could drown each other with hearts pouring out of their eyeballs. Rainbows spewing from their mouths. Like the whole convention was electrified every time they touched. Every time they looked. When they didn't look at each other. When they were in the same room. 

This cockles thing was bigger than fiction now, had a life of its own, it was breathing down their necks and Jensen always loved to have hot breath over the sensitive hairs on the back of his neck. Just like Misha was doing, blowing gently on the nape of his neck, making his toes curl. 

He was used to it now. The lights and attention and scrutiny. Had grown to love it and bask in it. 

And if he could never have the truth of Misha, he had Misha in this moment. 

Heart eyes mother fuckers, thought Jensen and looked at his co-star. 

* * * 

There was a line when they started playing this game and now Misha was pissing all over it. He was shuffling in his chair, like he couldn't sit still, his eyes glued to Jensen's, his mouth moaning, his eyes squeezed shut, then winking, then shut gain. Jensen was sweating. It was the lights and the cameras and not at all Misha's wanton display. Not at all those fake orgasm sounds mocking their fake sexual tension, making Jensen feel like he was going to die of desire. Misha mocked him, pretending to wipe sex sweat off his face when Jensen could feel perspiration tricking down his own neck. They were gonna have words. 

Jensen was gonna be firm with Misha. 

This was it. 

The skit was over all too soon and all too late at once. Jensen gets through the rest of the cockles panel in a daze. He was sure the audience was equally relieved when they left the stage. Had Rome ever caught fire before? Because that was a close call. 

Misha was sitting quietly with a bottle of water on the couch. Jared was going to say something congratulatory to them for the panel but Jensen gave him a look that made him run a mile, taking the other guest stars with him. 

The green room was just full of luggage and playing cards and mobile chargers. And Misha. And Jensen. Alone. 

"I'm calling it off!" Jensen said. "No more faking it!" 

"Why?" Misha was puffing his chest out, his hands on his hips, his eyes blazing. "It's working isn't it?" 

"Cockles is so fake," Jensen said. "And I don't want fake." 

Misha deflates, suddenly lost and yes his hands are trembling and Jensen noticed his own are as well. Better put those shaking hands together, they can hang onto each other. Misha's eyes are fanfiction wide. Fanfiction blue. Real life bright. 

"We have to break up," Jensen said, taking a step, then another, Misha with his back against the wall. "I wanna do this for real." 

And Misha's lips are indeed dry but soft. His mouth not so much, hot and copiously wet, his teeth sharp, his tongue satisfyingly large. And Jensen was never ever going to get back together with him again. Just like the song.

* * * 

"You could release a song!" Jared did the mind-blown gesture to his own head. "Something sad and catchy. A break up song to Misha! With uh angels in it. Like a coded message but not too coded you know." 

Jensen strummed his guitar. "Oh like this one..." 

He played Angeles to them. Misha humming along a little off key. The sun haloing his head like some carefully framed shot. The lake stretching out for miles, the yacht sailing calmly. They were jumping ship from fiction into reality. 

"The cockles breakup song," Jared clutched his chest. "I can see the posts already. It'll be heart breaking!" 

"So many weeping emojis," Misha smiled, eyes twinkling. He wasn't a bad person, certainly not sadistic, but he was the overlord of misrule and Jensen was glad Misha came into his life and fucked all the normalcy up. Left them scattered to the winds, drifting through the air like petals, each landing like a kiss. A little blessing on Jensen's skin. Misha with his chaos and Jensen his wayward love. 

The End.

**Author's Note:**

> Written for February spncoldesthits, here is the link to the challenge post: https://violetlyvanilla.tumblr.com/post/182839867354/spncoldesthits-spncoldesthits-february-2019 
> 
> The theme for this month was ‘wayward’.
> 
> Come find me on tumblr: violetlyvanilla  
> Also wattpad: violetlyvanilla 
> 
> More destiel one shots: 
> 
> Consumerist Meet Cutes https://archiveofourown.org/series/1253834
> 
> Dean and Cas in Ikea, on Tinder, in Bath And Body Works. Stand alone fics in everyday settings with pilot Cas and Lush Worker Dean and other such nonesense.
> 
>  
> 
> Or try my current wip: The Bodyguard (is the omega) https://archiveofourown.org/works/17404982
> 
> 80K of 90s film nostalgia alpha Dean omega Cas, dom Cas, sub Dean. And some wicked villains.


End file.
